Bootstrutter's Field Guide to the Feerrott
Book Text : A place filled with lush exotic beauty. This jungle has stood its ground for ages and still thrives to this day. Through the ages the children of war and the children of fear have met and vied for control of the jungle, all the while having to fend off the great dangers of the fauna and sometimes carnivorous flora. Ruins of attempted civilizations rest all about vines and roots entwined around stone, the jungle reclaiming itself. Only the tribal lizardmen have been able to maintain a long existence with this land and it is with great respect for the dangerous jungle that they still remain. : Made of megalithic slabs only an ogre effort could move, this stone roadway once ran from the Sunken Coast to a ogre made isle named Greenblood Port. These days the once grand causeway reaches for an isle that the sea has swallowed. Immense stones hold fast to each other as they reach deep into the Blackwater Sea to meet an isle that no longer breathes. : Emerging from the coast a person may find themselves being chased from the ancient ogre roadway and deeper southward. Here is where, in the dense walls of the rising foothills, a path exists leading towards a hidden vale. Here in this vale few lizardman venture and here is where explorers may find a place for retreat. But remember to post watch! There is but one way into this vale and one way out. If you get trapped in here there is nowhere to run. : Representing the god of fear this location is defined by a circle formed by ancient pillars or totems of stone. The very trees that claim most structures that attempted to defy the land here refuse to enter the clearing creating a glade fit for a campsite, but bones often found within hint that this is no place to rest, the Thulian disciples are ravenous! The Crescent Shrine: Traveling deep along the boulder paved ogre roadways one will find this ancient shrine. Massive stones line the perimeter as a great carving of a crescent creates a focal point or altar of the shrine. Ancient records tell that these were once points of energy for ogre mages. They have been reported wherever ogre empires have stood or soon to be conquered territory. I have seen such sights even in the highlands of Karana, now known as the Thundering Steppes. There they stand defiantly, but here they appear gasping for breath as the roots of the Feerrott squeeze the life from the shrine. : Draining from a water source unreachable Murdunk's Fall spills into the jungle floor. Two nostrils pour forth gushing green water, the blood of the ogre hero Murdunk as the orge myths record. Murdunk was the destroyer of the Rathe Council, gods of the earthen plane. He slew them and formed the Rathe Mountains and became legend. But it was here at the foothills of the Rathe Moutains that the dead gods of earth had their revenge as Murdunk slipped from a single loosened pebble and plummeted to his death at this very spot, his blood forming the Greenblood River of the jungle. : Embraced by the Greenblood River on its march to the south, there is this small isle that I warn all to avoid. Sitting on this isle is one of the ancient Thulian pyramids built an eon ago before the days of man. Go no closer to it, though it surely holds treasures of the mind as well as the coinpurse. This is sacred ground to the Thulian disciples and atop the pyramid rests a herald of the abhorrent gods, a twisted and mutated creature having a vaguely humanoid appearance that suggests a more terrestrial origin, but a mangled passage of suffering into Thulian society. The Ring of the Amatra: Few know of the Amatra, but many know of the druid rings. Rings of megalithic stones holding druidic runes of nature and forming a circle. They appear in many of the greater forests of Norrath, but why here in this jungle? Some studies have placed the existence of a tiny arm or branch of the majestic Elddar Forest here within the Feerrott. That arm is called the Amatra Forest to those who believe and these are its stones. The Secret Meeting: Deep off the beaten path and nestled between rocky hills is a pass that holds three monuments of war, each with runes and visages of the gods of war. The three monuments appear to be having some form of secret meeting far from the ears of the city. Could this be the location of such a meeting, a location of buried generals or even the arrival point for a god's return? : For those war historians that studied the rise of the 2nd Fist of the Rallosian Empire this may be a familiar location. Here is where the Rallosian Tetrad of Canons held evil rituals said to bring great powers to the marching armies of Zek. The Tetrad were said to be some of the most brutal and emotionless shaman in the empire. Their spiritual power was unmatched and many perished horribly at this altar in the name of conquest. The Ruins of Rallos: When the 2nd Fist of the Rallosian Empire reached its height they erected a grand city that was said to stretch from the foothills of Oggok to the greater Anaconda Valley of the Feerrott. When that empire was swallowed up by the Greenmist their grand capital was swallowed up by the Feerrott. But here can be found an extension of that great city still standing as a monument to one of the most feared empires on Norrath. Stone Gullet: Just when you think you've run out of room to trudge forward, the Feerrott surprises you. Here, where a small pond meets a reed covered wall of stone, there is a hidden fissure. This tight tunnel is not for the claustrophobic. Tons and tons of stone press in on each other and offer just a tiny crack of a tunnel to pass through. Beyond this tiny fissure rests a sacred ground hidden from Norrathian eyes for centuries, the Valley of Fear. The Hands of Thule: The jungles of the Feerrott hold many mysterious artifacts and monuments. Of them I can say that the Hand of Thule is the most interesting. These monuments are shaped like stone hands reaching up from the ground. Some have surmised that these were some form of arcane terraforming devices. Over time they would transform the landscape around them into the likeness of the deadly, horrifying moors of Modinthule, the plane of fear. There are only two Hands of Thule left intact in the jungle, a must see for any explorer.